


the ruiner of you

by PrinceDarcy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related, Episode: s02e10 Naka-Choko, Implied Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mind Palace, Rape Aftermath, Rape by Deceit, Reference to the tube scene, Self-Denial, is that even a necessary tag in this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:59:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2819537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDarcy/pseuds/PrinceDarcy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An assessment on the consent issues in Naka-Choko and how Will might have felt about that after the fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ruiner of you

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't Margot hate, honestly. It's not indicative of how I feel about her, and I am sympathetic towards her for doing what she did and understand her circumstances.
> 
> This is a character study on Will and his feelings, not mine.

Will woke and realized he was freezing.

Everything else came after that; the way his hair stuck to his face, the sheets tangled around his legs, the thick scent of sex hanging in the air like a curtain. Staring straight at the ceiling, he felt the side of the bed next to him, already knowing it was empty—but it was not only empty, but cold. The sheets were still damp. His stomach turned and he sat up quickly, holding a hand over his mouth and clamping his eyes shut.

The wave of nausea passed, and he remembered then that he hadn't had that much to drink, couldn't blame this sudden sick feeling on a hangover. It didn't feel like illness, either, no flu or the like. He shook his head to clear it, scratched at his skin where sweat left him itching. He wasn't sick, but it felt like something unwelcome had crawled into his veins nonetheless. Left the sheets damp and half the bed cold.

He needed a shower, he knew that, and to strip the bed and wash everything from it, too, but he was cold and the dogs were scratching at the door. Will's body protested as he peeled himself out of bed, forced himself upright, scanned the room for enough clothes to not be completely naked when he opened the door. He fumbled with the thermostat on his way to grab his pants and realized it was already on high, the chill he felt not coming from the air.

Looking down at himself, seeing the pink lines scratched into his skin by Margot's nails, as he started to dress himself sent him reeling with another shock of nausea again and he snapped back up like a soldier standing to attention, taking a sharp breath, then a slower one. _In through the nose, out through the mouth. You're not hungover, Graham, don't go getting sick on yourself. Get it together._ He got his clothes on the rest of the way without looking, hugging his arms around himself to try and drive off the cold feeling. Even clothed he felt bare, but he didn't look it, which was enough for him to let the dogs out. It was always calming, watching them run on the fields, but he couldn't find it in him to get completely at ease, not at first.

 _Close your eyes, wade into the stream._ It helped, at least, taking himself there. The trees, the water, the gentle breeze. It was easy to build up around himself in his mind, easy to replace everything else with that. He didn't already have his line prepared this time, though, and set about attaching the hook and fly to the end of it. Will was clumsy this time, though, snagged his palm with the hook and tore a big long cut through his hand. Blood dripped into the water below him and was washed away, but the cut closed and scarred over so quickly.

Margot Verger took his hand in hers and traced that scar, looked at him. “I'll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Will jolted and snatched his hand back, but she was moving towards him, tugging open the buttons of his shirt, undoing her own, touching him, kissing him, _don't fight it, I need you, don't you want me?_ —

He found himself swaying when he opened his eyes, braced himself briefly against the door frame. Another ragged breath as he ran his hand down his face. He felt a little, he realized, like he had when he realized he'd been eating human flesh for a good four months, when he remembered Hannibal caressing his face with gloved hands and forcing a feeding tube down his throat, and that was the stupidest thing he'd ever thought. It wasn't as if anything bad had happened, Margot was a beautiful woman, she'd wanted him—wanted him even though she wasn't attracted to men, because he understood, right? Because she needed him, or someone. That was all that mattered. Not that she was a stranger and he had no way of knowing what she really wanted from him, and how unsafe that thought had made him feel. Not that he'd told her no, no, put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her a pace back when she'd first gotten into his space. She needed him, needed something, after what her brother did, after all those scars she'd gotten. That was what mattered. He'd done something important for her. It didn't matter how disgusted with himself he was now.

Besides, she was a woman, inches shorter than him and so much smaller than him. It wasn't like she'd used force, like it had been anything but words. He could have stopped her, easily, could have fought back more than that one attempt at stopping her. If he'd really wanted to. He hadn't, hadn't wanted to hurt her, gave in and let her have what she needed, so he couldn't have really wanted her to stop. And it had been so easy to shut it all out, to imagine he wasn't even there with her, to imagine another pair of lips, to imagine different bodies in bed with him—to imagine it was _them_ bare in each others' arms, that he was an observer, outside, pleasure coming from empathy vicariously rather than from what was happening. They were beautiful, Lecter and Bloom both, and he hated to admit that they were beautiful together. He could let himself block out Margot and see them, lie with them, fade into the background and watch their lovemaking and let his pleasure be theirs instead. That made it easier.

(But even that was tainted, ink-black antlers and claws and bones jutting out and Alana was so afraid under the thing as it violated her and that made Will afraid too. Only that. He wasn't afraid of Margot. Obviously. Maybe he was just worried he'd disappoint her when she _needed_ him.)

But it wasn't like he hadn't had a choice. That wasn't what it was like, not when all she'd done was speak and tell him what she wanted and he'd protested, protested—bent. Agreed. Gave in. Taken pity on her because he knew what it was like to have a shadow that nipped at his heels.

His throat felt dry and his hands were clammy. He called the dogs back, got them inside, and grabbed the bottle of Aspirin out of the cabinet for the first time in a while. He hadn't needed it lately, lucky him, but there was starting to be a dull ache behind his eyebrows that demanded his attention. He stopped by the kitchen for water, considered making himself breakfast, but he wasn't sure how easily he'd keep anything down when something was flipping around his insides every time he had an inopportune thought. The water to down the pills was all he'd chance for now.

_You're an idiot, Graham. Stop acting like it's the end of the world that you had some bad sex. You're lucky anyone wanted the guy whose claim to fame is not being the Chesapeake Ripper. Lucky that someone like her would even look at you. She's beautiful. Think about that._

Margot _was_ beautiful, but even before she'd talked proclivities he hadn't been attracted to her that way. There'd been a certain degree of danger to her beauty. A mantis who would bite your head off as soon as make love to you. He'd only committed her beauty to mind as some surface observation, but now it mattered even less than that. He remembered that her eyes were blank. He remembered that her nails were sharp. He remembered her voice in his ear. He remembered how persistent she was, how she wouldn't take no for an answer. But she was beautiful. He tried to remind himself of that. She was beautiful, and he couldn't help but want her, even if he still didn't realize he wanted her. And it was idiotic that he felt as terrible he did now.

He pulled the blankets, sheets, pillow cases off his bed, rolled them into a ball and left them. He couldn't run the washing machine and shower at the same time if he wanted any hot water, but it felt like he was at least getting a good start to get the visual evidence off the bed. Progress. Soon it'd be like she'd never been here. Wouldn't that be something? God, that was pathetic of him.

Will undressed again in the bathroom with his back to the mirror and his eyes fixed on a crack in the wall opposite him, shuddering whenever his hands brushed skin more sensitive from where she'd scratched him. He'd never had a particular problem with his own body, even when he was young and self-conscious, even now when he bore sharp teeth and antlers and tar-covered feathers in his dreams, but it still made him feel slightly ill to look at himself now. Showering, he figured, would help. Washing himself off, washing off what trace there was of the night prior. He'd feel better to be clean.

That was easier said than done. Scrubbing at himself felt pointless, like the water and soap just ran off without doing anything to the skin beneath, like that ugly stickiness of sweat and sex would stay no matter what he did. He stayed under the hot spray long past when he needed to, leaned his forehead against the tile when the steam started to make him dizzy and let the water run over him even when he'd washed his hair and every inch of himself he could reach. He shut his eyes, forced his mind to go blank.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been in there when the shower head sputtered and the water hitting him suddenly went cold. With a few choice exclamations he leaped out from under it, shut the water off and flailed to get a towel on hand to dry himself. Water was still dripping in his face when he got out and that, at least, spared him meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

He got himself dressed for the second time that day, this time in clean clothes, fresh clothes, clothes that she hadn't touched, he threw his old ones in the pile of laundry on his bed and waited for the water heater to warm back up so he could do the laundry. He made coffee and forced himself to drink it, took a few bites of an apple even with how weak his stomach still felt.

He went to dinner with Lecter and Bloom, let his feet brush against someone else's under the table (though he couldn't hazard a guess whose it was) and smiled, enjoyed the food, made himself think about them without thinking about Margot. He proved his strength to himself against Freddie Lounds, took no prisoners, accepted no words against him, took no pity, and told himself, _I can fight, I am not weak._

A week later he stood with Margot in Lecter's office, listened to her too-smooth voice go on about her brother, her plan to outdo him. None of it mattered. It was never about him. It was never about pity. She needed nothing. She just needed a pawn. He tasted bile in his throat.

“I lied,” she said.

 _You used me. You took advantage of me. I'm not your tool to do with as you please._ He kept those words down, played sympathy instead. Understanding.

He broke the mirror in his bathroom when he got home that night.


End file.
